Schema.org

The unified markup vocabulary for search engines. Supported types and properties, implementation formats, and how inheritance works.

In brief

Schema.org is a collaborative project by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex that created a common structured data standard. It features over 800 types and 1400 properties for describing organizations, products, articles, events, and more.

History and creators

Schema.org was launched in 2011 by Google, Bing, and Yahoo; Yandex joined in 2012. The goal is a single markup language that all search engines understand. The current standard includes over 800 types and continues to grow.

Main schema types

Organizations: Organization, LocalBusiness, Corporation.
People: Person.
Content: Article, BlogPosting, NewsArticle.
E-commerce: Product, Offer, AggregateRating, Review.
Events: Event, BusinessEvent.
Media: VideoObject, ImageObject, AudioObject.

Implementation formats

Google recommends JSON-LD (<script> tag) as the easiest and best-supported format. Alternatives—Microdata (HTML attributes) and RDFa—are becoming legacy. JSON-LD can be placed anywhere on the page without affecting the visible content.

Type hierarchy

All types inherit from the base Thing. Example chain: Thing → CreativeWork → Article → BlogPosting. This means BlogPosting inherits properties from Article, CreativeWork, and Thing, allowing you to use common fields (name, description) as well as specific ones.

TXT

Thing
├── CreativeWork
│   ├── Article
│   │   ├── BlogPosting
│   │   └── NewsArticle
│   ├── WebPage
│   └── VideoObject
├── Organization
│   └── LocalBusiness
└── Product

FAQ

Common questions

No, but without it you miss out on Rich Results, a stronger Knowledge Graph, and higher CTR.

JSON-LD is recommended by Google—it's easier to maintain, doesn't mix with HTML, and avoids template update errors.

It depends on your content. At minimum, Organization/WebSite. Add Article for blog posts, Product/Offer for e-commerce, FAQ for Q&A.

Yes, it's common—e.g., Product + AggregateRating + Review. Each type is a separate object in the JSON-LD.